Molotov Cocktail
by PharaonicWolf
Summary: Set four years after the end of the series. Malik visits Ryou and decides to do something about the overgrown plants, the paint color, and the ghosts. Rated high just in case. I strongly suggest you read the note in my bio page concerning this story.


A/N: Written because my insecurities are eating me alive. Inspired by Pachelbel's "Sleep Walker," which is one of the most amazing fics I have ever read. GO READ IT. NOW.

For those of you who haven't read _A Series of Unfortunate Events_, aMolotov cocktail is a bomb made out of a bottle filled with flammable liquid. The wicks are pretty short and are lit right before the bomb is flung like a hand grenade.

Rated for light shonen-ai and references to alcoholic beverages.

**Molotov Cocktail**

Ryou lived on the sixth floor, in an apartment with faulty air conditioning and an overabundance of houseplants. The day Malik arrived, the elevator was out of order, so he hauled his luggage up all six flights of stairs only to be greeted by a locked door that wouldn't open no matter how loudly he knocked. He made himself comfortable with his back against the wall and studied the cobwebs clustered in the corners. The whole apartment complex was like this – perfectly fine on the outside but decaying inside. A bit like the person he had come to see, actually.

Said person dragged himself up the stairs at nearly ten o'clock, back from his evening shift at the corner grocery store, weighted down with plastic bags and more than his fair share of troubles. The crease in his forehead deepened when he realized who was sitting in his hallway.

They exchanged uncomfortable pleasantries; neither of them had really grown out of their teenage awkwardness. Malik didn't explain his reason for coming. Ryou ignored the fact that it was unusual for someone you had only met once, briefly, four years ago to suddenly show up on your doorstep with a battered leather suitcase and a tired expression. Though it had been ages since he had had company, Ryou had not forgotten his manners. He invited Malik in and tried to hide his distaste when the Egyptian man didn't bother to remove his shoes.

"Nice place you've got here," Malik lied as he wrestled with the overgrown palm plant that had snagged his sleeve.

Ryou opened the fridge to put the milk away. "I'm sorry; I wasn't expecting any visitors." He caught himself before he finished the thought aloud.

_I wasn't expecting any visitors – especially not you_.

Malik knew what he meant but pretended not to. "I've been making the rounds of everyone in Domino." Here he rolled his eyes. He hadn't even said twenty words to the man, and all except the greeting in the hallway had been a lie.

Ryou's silence gave Malik a chance to look around. All of the walls were a plain, muted white, except for one kitchen wall that had been painted a sickly yellow. The kitchen baseboards and doorframes were edged with painter's tape, but there were no signs that anyone had cracked a paint can recently – not even a stray roller. Maybe the wall had always been yellow, or maybe Ryou had gotten so disheartened by the color that he lacked even the energy to paint over it. The rest of the apartment was impeccably neat, if a little dusty; even the magazines on the coffee table were perfectly aligned. It was a bit frightening.

Ryou caught Malik staring at the yellow wall. The pale boy flushed a little and asked, "Would you like something to drink?"

"Something alcoholic would be nice," Malik muttered, wandering into the hallway and peeking through the bathroom door to see if the towels were folded precisely. They were.

"I don't have any of that."

"Root beer?"

"No."

"Soda?"

"No."

"Coffee?"

Ryou made some fresh coffee and stayed awake sipping pensively long after Malik had fallen asleep – which was several hours later than he had intended, due to the effects of the caffeine.

It took Ryou a while to get used to Malik's presence. After nearly three months, he gave up on the idea of this being a temporary thing and bought an air mattress so Malik could sleep in the spare room instead of on the couch. If it bothered Ryou that his roommate was a shameless freeloader, he didn't show it. On days that he didn't have to work at the grocery store, he cooked both of them dinner, and on days that he did, he made sure that there were TV dinners in the freezer. The only time he suggested that Malik get a job was when the Egyptian asked him to pick up a six-pack on his way home.

"If you want it that much," Ryou told him with uncharacteristic sharpness, "pay for it yourself."

To his surprise, that was exactly what Malik did. But he didn't get a job; Ryou had no idea where the money had come from. He had always assumed that Malik was broke and had had a falling-out with his siblings that left him with no place else to go. After a few weeks of close observation, he deduced that Malik's suitcase contained several envelopes stuffed with yen, which Malik raided anytime he wanted alcohol in his system. Which, to Ryou's displeasure, was fairly often. A freeloading roommate was one thing, but a drunken roommate was another. Ryou took to surreptitiously pouring the beer down the sink whenever he found it in the fridge.

For people who shared an apartment, they saw each other surprisingly little. Malik often took walks – sometimes ending up in a bar – and Ryou had classes at the community college in addition to the job at the supermarket.

"What do you want to be when you graduate?" Malik asked around a mouthful of leftover lasagna.

Ryou didn't look up from his textbook. "An artist."

Malik raised an eyebrow and leaned over to look at what Ryou was reading. "So you're majoring in computer engineering?"

Ryou flushed and snapped the book closed. "My father wanted me to."

"You're twenty years old and you still do what your father tells you?"

"He didn't want me to end up in a dead-end profession."

"You wouldn't end up in one in the first place. You've got talent. You could go places."

Ryou's face became a slightly darker shade of red. "How do you know?"

Too late, Malik caught himself. He had discovered Ryou's portfolio, lying forgotten in the back of the hallway closet, on a rainy day when boredom had driven him to scour the house for a deck of cards. He had also discovered that the middle drawer of the bedroom bureau was full of unsent letters, but although he was curious, something had told him not to mention those or even to read them.

That night Ryou went to bed early. Malik wandered back and forth, swatting at the African violet that always brushed his hand when he entered the living room. Something needed to be done.

Ryou got up when he heard glasses clinking in the kitchen. There was no point in trying to sleep, not after what Malik had said. He found his roommate pouring two different brands of beer into a single glass filled with ice cubes.

"What are you doing?"

"Fixing your medicine."

Malik handed him the glass and Ryou drank it, if only to get Malik to stop staring at him like that. Despite the ice, it burned on the way down and sent him into a coughing fit so violent he almost vomited all over the peeling linoleum. When he looked up, the first thing he saw was Malik's concerned face.

"Too strong for you?"

Ryou shook his head and thrust the glass at his friend. "Nah. Fix me another one."

Fifteen minutes later, both boys found themselves sitting out on the fire escape, swirling ice cubes in the wine glasses Ryou had retrieved from the top cabinet.

"Feeling any better?" Malik asked.

"A little." Ryou glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes. "How did you know I was feeling bad?"

Malik considered pointing out that Ryou haunted his own house, but settled for a simpler explanation. "I get the same way sometimes."

The pale-haired boy nodded, finished his second glass, and picked up the beer bottle to make another.

"You'd better stop before you get drunk. You have class tomorrow."

With a sign, Ryou set the bottle down and tipped an ice cube into his mouth, sucking the last bits of alcohol off of it.

"I wish we had proper cocktails," Malik muttered.

"Molotov cocktails," Ryou replied, looking up at the rungs of the seventh-floor fire escape. "Some days I just want to level this whole damn place."

The silence was lessened somewhat by the understanding between them.

Malik stretched. "I think sleeping on that air mattress is screwing up my back."

"You can go back to the couch if you'd like."

Malik seized Ryou's chin in his hands and turned the other man's head so they were looking each other in the eye. "I don't want to sleep on the couch."

Ryou's eyes widened, but their understanding had reached the point where nothing more needed to be said.

When Ryou got home the next day, Malik was standing in the middle of the kitchen, examining a fan of color swatches from the hardware store.

"What are you doing?"

Malik nodded towards the yellow wall. "Picking up where you left off. It's not too late to salvage the whole thing, you know."

They had the kitchen – including the doorframes and baseboards – painted within two days, replacing the ugly yellow with warm beige. After that, they tackled the rest of the apartment, trimming back the houseplants and sweeping the ghosts out with the cobwebs. Malik deflated the air mattress and put it away so Ryou could set up an easel in the spare room.

"By the way," Ryou remarked over another false cocktail a few weeks later, "you never told me why you came to visit."

"I didn't come to visit." Malik smiled and tipped his head back, draining his glass. "I came to stay."

End

A/N: Some people do not understand the difference between a flame and constructive criticism.

This is a flame: "Ur story sux and so do u! I hate u and ur writing! Ur stoopid!1!"

This is constructive criticism: "I think the ending was too abrupt. Perhaps you could describe the progression of their relationship more."

The former will be laughed at. The latter is not only welcomed, it is encouraged.


End file.
